


Mother-Henning

by beargirl1393



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-20
Updated: 2013-08-20
Packaged: 2017-12-24 04:04:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/935098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beargirl1393/pseuds/beargirl1393
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dori agrees to stop fussing... Only he doesn't, and his brothers don't even realize<br/>Written for a prompt on the kink meme</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mother-Henning

“I don’t need you fussing over me all the time,” Ori snapped, clenching his hands into fists. “I am an _adult_ , and I can take care of myself! I don’t need you asking me if I ate breakfast or if I remembered my scarf when I went to Dale. I’m the Official Librarian of Erebor and soon I’ll take over the mantel of Historian from Balin. I don’t need you butting into my life!”

Dori, face pale, took a step back, but Ori didn’t notice. Nori, lounging in the doorway, stepped forward and put a hand on his younger brother’s shoulder.

“Ori’s right,” he said coolly. “You’ve been mother-henning me all my life! I was a thief Dori, and I didn’t need you asking after the state of my tunics. I have a respectable job now, so you and your mothering can take a hike!”

Dori swallowed, hesitating a moment before nodding. “If that is what you wish…”

“It is,” his brothers snapped in concert.

“Then I will stop being so overprotective,” Dori finished, as though his brothers had never spoken. Both grinned and Ori hugged him before they left, heading to their own homes and leaving Dori in silence.

 _Will Ori remember to mend his clothes,_ Dori wondered, his eyes flicking around his own modest home. _Will Nori remember to wash up after himself? Will either of them think about shopping for food and other household goods?_

* * *

 

Ori was happy. It had been three weeks since he and Nori had told Dori to back off, and true to his word the other dwarf hadn’t bothered them. Ori had been busy and hadn’t seen Dori at all in that time, although he had seen Nori a few times.

Nori, while happy, was also suspicious. Something wasn’t right, but he didn’t know what it was. When he and Ori told Dori to back off, he hadn’t expected his brother to give in so easily. He had expected protests, denials, anything really, but all Dori had done was nod and agree to stop bothering them.

He expected to have his brother beating on his door the day after, asking after the state of his tunics or something, but he hadn’t seen Dori once throughout that time. From what he gathered from Ori, Dori hadn’t been to see him either.

While he was happy to have been left alone, he also wondered why Dori had agreed so readily, after years of fights between the three of them over this very thing. Why now, after all this time, did Dori decide to listen to them?

* * *

 

Nori and Ori were having lunch with Kili and Fili when Nori’s suspicions were confirmed.

The young princes complained about the difficulties of keeping a household running, saying they had no idea how much their mother had done for them before they moved out.

“Look,” Kili said, gesturing to his bandaged fingers. “I poked myself like a million times trying to mend one tiny rip in my tunic.”

“And I would rather face down another army of orcs than wash another dish,” Fili complained, slouching in his seat.

Ori bit his lip, fingering the barely noticeable mend in the fabric, from where he had torn it on a loose nail on one of the bookshelves two days ago. He hadn’t mended it, he hadn’t even thought about it. Mending clothes was always Dori’s job.

Nori’s eyes narrowed in thought as he considered his actions over the past three weeks. He remembered placing many plates, cups, bowls, ect, in the sink, but he couldn’t remember washing any of them, yet they were always clean and put away by the next morning. He hadn’t thought about washing dishes, as Dori had always done it before.

* * *

 

After lunch with the princes, Nori pulled Ori aside.

“I never wash dishes,” the former thief muttered, “But I don’t have a dirty dish in my house.”

“I haven’t mended my tunics,” Ori said, looking up at his older brother, “But none of them are torn or worn.”

“I always have food, candles, soap, whatever I could think of needing,” Nori said, frowning, “But I haven’t bought any of it from the market.”

“Neither did I,” Ori said, frowning as well. “Do you think…?”

Before Ori could finish his sentence, the conversation of two gossiping merchants caught the brothers’ attention.

“Don’t know what’s wrong with him,” the one was saying. “The tea is still the best in Middle-Earth, but Master Dori looks like death warmed over.”

“I know what you mean,” his friend replied. “He looks exhausted. I wonder what happened. He was fine a few weeks ago.”

The two dwarves had moved out of earshot by this point, but neither brother needed to hear more.

 _He was fine before we moved out and he became caretaker for three homes,_ Nori thought bitterly, while Ori wrung his gloved hands, blinking back tears.

“We have to go see him Nori,” Ori said, grabbing his brother’s hand and tugging it. “We have to see if he’s ok.”

Nori only nodded, allowing his brother to tug him along to Dori’s teashop, where he likely would be closing up for the night.

Stopping outside, both brothers could see that the merchants were right. Dori didn’t look well, with dark black circles under his eyes from lack of sleep. He seemed tense, as though he was indeed doing too much, working himself too hard.

They entered the shop, hearing the bell ring above their head, and Dori’s voice floated out from the back room.

“The shop is closed for today. Please return tomorrow.” Even his voice sounded tired and sad.

“Dori?” Ori called, and there was a rattle of china, as though he had nearly dropped something.

Dori came out, drying his hands on his apron and tucking a stray wisp of hair back into his braid. “Nori, Ori, what are you doing here? Is something wrong?” He bit his lip after the second question, clearly wondering it could be construed as mother-henning.

“Yes,” Nori said, looking over his exhausted older brother carefully. “For starters, you look like you haven’t slept in weeks.”

“I’ve been busy,” Dori said, folding his arms over his chest.

“Busy keeping house for us?” Ori asked, noticing his brother’s flinch. “We wouldn’t have even noticed if Fili and Kili didn’t bring it up. Everything was taken care of, as it’s always been, and we didn’t question it.”

“Why did you do it,” Nori asked curiously. “You’ve been running yourself ragged trying to take care of us, even when we didn’t deserve it, and you didn’t tell us?”

Dori laughed weakly, sitting down in one of the chairs at a nearby table. “Do you honestly think I would leave you two to fend for yourselves? Neither of you know the first thing about taking care of a household. You can’t sew, you can’t wash dishes…do you even know how to make a shopping list?”

Both Nori and Ori shook their heads, feeling rather foolish that it took them three weeks to notice.

“I admit,” Dori said, shaking his head, “I thought you would notice before now. Maybe I should have stopped caring for you entirely and let you be buried by dirty dishes and wear rags.”

He stood up, moving over and hugging his brothers. “But I couldn’t do that,” he finished softly.

Nori and Ori hugged him back tightly. Dori was far too fussy sometimes, but they could always count on him to have their back.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt:  
> Doris brothers tell him to stop meddling in their lives, a huge fight that has them all screaming at each other. Preferably sometime after Erebor (with everyone still alive cause the alternative is just too sad).  
> So Dori backs off, completely, and Ori thinks this is great, because he's living alone, becoming a scholar, being pretty awesome. But it doesn't occur to him to wonder, "oh hey, there's that tunic I tore a hole in and never repaired, but what luck, it seems to have mended itself" because he's never had to worry about these things before, Dori did it without ever drawing attention.  
> Nori is pretty pleased, because hey, legitimate job that Dori cannot harass him about, and Doris stopped being a mothering old fusspot, so awesome! And if that sink full of dirty dishes should just happened to have convienatly been washed and put away, well, he can't be expected to really notice, the only place he's ever lived in before was home with Dori and Ori and he never had to worry about things like housework.  
> So neither brother really notices that Dori is still looking after them, neither of them even really notice things like housework or laundry, because Dori always did this sort of thing for them and never once asked for their help.  
> And then the two start to realise, maybe Dori always looks tired (because hey, keeping three homes in a state of cleanliness is not an easy feat) or they hear the other company members complaining about housekeeping and begin to wonder what they mean.  
> After this I just want them going to find Dori, who has not been around them much recently because he didn't want to give in to the urge to fuss over them (and who may or may not be a little lonely and depressed) and some sort of cute fluffy cuddles should occur please.


End file.
